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Monday, 23 July 2012

Building a Better Business

This article was issued
in a March 2007 issue of my Road Reflections Newsletter, but remains an
important message.Enjoy this Toddwaz
Classic.

Big corporations have boardrooms, and great corporations use
them.It’s important to get your key
people together (for most of us it’s all of our people) to correct,
instruct and inform.

Staff meetings can be really boring, so there are four
things that exemplary jewellers do to make them efficient and valued.

First, most of you’ll be holding
these meetings either before or after work, so provide a snack and
beverages.Mike Ungrin of Marjon
jewellers cautions that if you’re not careful snack-time can burn-up valuable
meeting time, so keep it simple!He
keeps his meetings to a maximum of one hour as it seems the outside limit for
information retention without a recess.While it is lawful to provide a meal as compensation for being there,
all of the jewellers I spoke to said that their staff members are paid for
their attendance.

Secondly, any meeting needs an agenda in order to keep
conversations on-track.While
open-discussion time is important, there are urgent matters that will quickly
be put on the back burner if conversations wander down one rabbit-trail after
another.Dick Jewell of Mitchell &
Jewell rotates the task of recording secretary.If you record your minutes and post them on the bulletin board, then
staff are reminded of the new expectations that came out of your meeting.

Some common agenda items are:

·Sales stats

·New product knowledge

·Workplace issues (incl. security)

·Sales training

Thirdly, use these meetings to clearly outline
expectations.Everyone I spoke with
discussed the ongoing challenge of developing and maintaining consistent
customer service and operating procedures.By discussing expectations, you give staff freedom and power to exercise
creativity without acting outside your parameters.

The fourth common
element for successful staff meetings is “open discussion.”Allow time for questions and comments when
going over agenda items.If, for
example, one person questions a new repair tracking system; chances are they’re
not the only one who lacks understanding.

Also allow time for “new business.”Great ideas sometimes go unsaid without an
appropriate forum.Grumbling about petty
issues may continue behind backs unless given a chance to publicly vent.If you are honest enough to, as Dick Jewell
says, “praise and whip,” then your staff will echo a similar openness about
their issues.

What if you’re just a small operator? Curtis McLeod of Ken’s
Goldsmithing, along with the owners is part of a team of only 7 to 8
people.They hold their meetings mid-day
during the shift cross-over once or twice per month.They usually talk about workplace issues and
work on sales training.Even though they
all work with each other so closely, Curtis claims that “it’s a must” because
“it helps keep everyone on the same page.”